Posts filed under ‘Unmanned Systems’

Future War.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal Rhita Daniel)

Infantrymen from the 4th Marines’ 3rd Battalion assessed emerging technologies and engineering innovations recently during an Urban Advanced Naval Technology Exercise at Camp Pendleton, California. The March 21, 2018 exercise saw leathernecks checking the operational utility of an unmanned light cargo vehicle, an electric tactical vehicle, protective helmets and defensive weapons like the Big Gun shown here. The name on the side of the weapon says it all. The “Drone Killer” is aimed at countering the threat from small unmanned aerial systems (drones).

Marine Corps planners expect battle-spaces in the future will include narrow streets lined by high rise buildings in densely populated megacities in Africa and Asia.

Click here to see more photos of the technology examined at the urban warfare technology exercise.

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Raising the Stakes.

After more than 20 years spent focusing on global terrorism and counterinsurgency, the United States and its allies are confronting the Cold War threat of nuclear missile attack again.

North Korea launched another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test this week (July 4) and it’s getting a lot of attention, analysts say, because the missile was powerful enough to reach Alaska.

The United States detected the ICBM and tracked it for 37 minutes, the longest time of flight for any ballistic missile North Korea has launched to date, a Pentagon spokesman said.

The ICBM launched from North Korea’s Banghyon Airfield, which is about 62 miles from Pyongyang, said the spokesman, Navy Captain Jeff Davis. The North Korean missile landed in the Sea of Japan.

An M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System from U.S. Army’s 18th Field Artillery Regiment, 210th Field Artillery Brigade, fires an MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile into the Sea of Japan on July 5, 2017. In the foreground, two mobile carriers prepare to launch South Korean Hyunmoo II missiles. (Army photo)

The U.S. and South Korean military launched their own missile tests Wednesday (July 5). The exercise utilized the Eighth U.S. Army’s Tactical Missile System and South Korean Hyunmoo II missiles. U.S. and South Korean personnel fired missiles into territorial waters along South Korea’s east coast.

Officials said the missile launches demonstrated the combined deep strike capabilities which allow the South Korean-U.S. alliance to neutralize hostile threats and aggression against South Korea, the United States and other allies.

In Poland on Thursday (July 6), President Donald Trump said the time has arrived to confront North Korea. “I don’t like to talk about what I have planned, but I have some pretty severe things that we’re thinking about,” Trump said, the Associated Press reported. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to do them,” Trump added.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters in Washington Thursday July 6 that the U.S. military stands ready to provide Trump with options, but that diplomatic and economic efforts remain the tools of choice to convince North Korea to stop its nuclear and missile programs, according to DoD News.

“The president’s been very clear, and secretary of state’s been very clear that we are leading with diplomatic and economic efforts,” Mattis said during an impromptu news conference in the Pentagon. “The military remains ready in accordance with our alliance with Japan, with Korea,” he added. The North Korean launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4 is a very serious escalation and provocation, Mattis said, and also an affront to the United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Just last month, Mattis told the Senate Armed services committee that the “most urgent and dangerous threat” to peace and security is “North Korea’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.”

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Directed Energy Weapons.

Each branch of the U.S. military is developing directed energy technology — largely for defense against small, weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones. But the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) wants to mount a laser on a drone to attack enemy ballistic missiles.

An artist’s rendering of a vehicle-mounted small laser defense against attacking drones being studied by DARPA. (DARPA photo).

Since the Air Force manned Airborne Laser system was cancelled as too expensive and impractical in 2012, the MDA has looked for a way of combining a compact, high-power laser with a high-flying aircraft that can stay aloft for extended periods. Such an aircraft, ideally a drone, would be able to destroy an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the boost stage — shortly after launch — when it is most vulnerable.

“Our goal eventually is to integrate a high-powered, solid-state laser on a long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle operating in the stratosphere where the atmospheric disturbance of the aircraft and the laser is significantly reduced,” Richard Matlock, MDA’s program executive for advanced technology told a missile defense conference last December.

Meanwhile, theDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working on a counter drone laser system to protect moving ground vehicles. The agency’s Mobile Force Protection Program is seeking industry solutions for protecting high value ground assets from the growing threat of small weaponized drones.

The Air Force wants to supplement the Gatling gun on the AC-130 gunship with a silent laser weapon. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Julianne Showalter)

The Navy, which is the farthest along in weaponized laser development, is also helping Special Operations forces mount a directed energy weapon on Air Force AC-130 gunships. In addition to the big plane’s flying Gatling gun with a finite load of ammunition, directed energy would bring a silent, invisible capability that will be a game changer, according to Air Force Lieutenant General Bradley Heithold. Heithold, the principal deputy director for cost assessment and program evaluation at the Pentagon, is expected to outline the Defense Department’s roadmap for offensive and defensive directed energy weapons capabilities when he and Matlock speak at IDGA’s Directed Energy and Next Generation and Munitionsconference later this month in Washington.

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Afghan Scan Eagle.

The Afghan military could be flying its first unarmed surveillance drone as early as March, according to a U.S. commander in Kabul, Reuters reports.

The NATO-led military alliance will provide the remotely piloted Insitu ScanEagle aircraft, and will train Afghan soldiers to operate the system, said Major General Gordon Davis, commander of the unit that procures new equipment for the Afghans, Reuters said.

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Navy Plans Foreign Sales.

Insitu’s RQ-21 Blackjack drone, now being flown by the Marine Corps, is among the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) the U.S. Navy says it will offer for foreign sales.

Reporting from the Singapore Air Show, Defense News, says the Northrop Grumman MQ-8B Fire Scout, a small unmanned helicopter, and Northrop Grumman’s high flying MQ-4C Triton, a large-scale maritime surveillance aircraft, will be among the UAS available to foreign military customers.

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Nigerian Drones from China?

For African governments facing tight defense budgets and chronic security threats, Chinese military equipment has great appeal, particularly as it often comes as part of a broader package of trade and investment, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

Ten African nations have started buying equipment from China within the last 10 years, including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Angola and Nigeria.

And armed drones may be among the military equipment Nigeria is buying. In January 2015, photos of an armed drone that had crashed in a field in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Borno found their way onto the Internet. A second crash was reported in June. The drone was identified as a CH-3, an armed version of earlier drones built by China Aerospace Science and Technology, a vast state-owned enterprise employing more than 170,000 people.

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Small drones, often commercially available, are a growing concern to military forces and security operations, according to a recent story in Aviation Week & Space Technology(subscription required).

The November 6 piece by David Eschel, writing from Tel Aviv (with some assistance from your 4GWAR Editor), notes that defense contractors and research institutes are rushing to offer technologies to counter the threat from little, inexpensive unmanned aircraft that are easy to make, simple to fly and hard to detect. Israel has become a leader in developing counter drone methods and systems — as small unmanned aircraft from Syria, Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere have tried to penetrate Israeli airspace.

U.S. companies like Lockheed Martin have developed non-kinetic ways to combat unmanned aerial system threats. ICARUS, Lockheed Martin’s counter drone system combines multi-spectral sensor technology with advanced cyber electromagnetic technology to detect, intercept and defeat small drones that can evade most standard radar systems.

Another, man-portable drone-jamming device developed has been developed by Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle. DroneDefender is designed to thwart intrusions into restricted areas by small off-the-shelf unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) often too small to spot on radar, like the quadcopter that crashed into a tree on the South Lawn of the White House last January.

The Battelle counter drone system weighs less than 10 pounds and can be mounted on any firearm equipped with a Picatinny rail for attaching accessories like a rifle scope. The device Battelle used in a demonstration video looks like an assault rifle with a radio antenna for a barrel and a Dustbuster (handheld vacuum cleaner) attached below.

Both ICARUS and DroneDefender debuted at this year’s Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) expo in Washington. DroneDefender uses and radio control frequency disruption technologies to stop unmanned UAVs in midair from a distance of 400 meters. Once an intruding drone is spotted, a guard equipped with the shoulder mounted device just has to aim, lock on and pull the trigger, launching the drone-capturing beam. The DroneDefender relies on visual identification rather than radar or video sensors Battelle said, to “make the man our detector and decision maker.”

Because of its portability, Battelle officials say DroneDefender provides instant threat mitigation by quickly disrupting the drone so no remote action, including detonation of an explosive device, can occur over sensitive areas.

Once it is neutralized in flight, the UAV will do one of three things depending on how it was programmed: drop to the ground; return to its operator or descend in a controlled manner. Since the disruption is not kinetic like a rifle or shotgun blast, it minimizes both drone damage and the risk to public safety – two capabilities long sought by police and security guards.

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Combat vehicles, communications and protective gear will all be on display at the AUSA 2015 conference and trade show.(U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — All things Army — from ground combat vehicles, protective gear, unmanned vehicles, drones, sensors, small arms, strategy and tactics will be on display and under discussion at the Washington Convention Center this week as the Association of the U.S. Army holds its annual conference and exposition.

Heidi Shyu, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology — she’s in charge of figuring out what the Army needs to buy or develop and whether and how much it will cost — is another anticipated speaker, as is General Dennis Via, commanding general of Army Materiel Command. Both of them will provide an update on Army modernization plans.

The theme of the conference is Winning in a Complex World and General David Perkins, commanding general of Army Training and Doctrine Command will discuss what that will take.

With conflicts, insurgencies and threats in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, East and West Africa as well as Asia, the U.S. military has said it will be increasingly leaning on partner nations and allies to help bear the burden of dealing with crises around the world.

And foreign militaries and defense contractors will have a big presence at the already huge expo. There will be 62 countries represented at the event, including eight international pavilions on the exhibit hall floor, according to retired Lieutenant General Roger Thompson, AUSA’s vice president for membership and meeting. Turkey will have the largest pavilion, he told the Defense News weekly military affairs broadcastSunday.

Several U.S. contractors, including Northrop Grumman and Oshkosh Defense, will be unveiling new ground vehicles. Northrop will be showing off its Hellhound prototype Light Reconnaissance Vehicle and Oshkosh Defense will unveil its MRAP 6-by-6 All Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV). MRAP stands for mine resistant ambush protected, in other words an armored vehicle that can protect occupants from roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices (IEDs).